The Burnt Out Society: Why So Many of Us are Unhappy and How We Can Make a Change

So many people are unhappy. Levels of mental ill-health have been rising inexorably for the last few decades and our response to this so far has been the widespread use of medication, the pouring of resources into psychological treatments, and the establishment of resilience programmes in our schools and workplaces. Why are we now so unhappy when life is easier and safer than it has ever been? Why do so many of us now need treatment to stop us sinking into depression? Why are we now having to teach our children to be resilient enough to survive in the social environment we have created for them?The Burnt Out Society explains why our current approach is misguided and how we could better direct our energy and resources in order to make ourselves happier.
Drawing on evidence from medicine, psychology, sociology and evolutionary biology this book explains why high levels of mental ill-health are an inevitable result of the way we have chosen to live. People our unhappy because we have created a society that exposes them to continual stress resulting in psychological burnout. In the workplace we recognise the dangers of burnout and we try to address it by seeking out and tackling the causes of workplace stress.
But in real life we are in the habit of patching people up and throwing them back into the environment that caused them so much distress in the first place. This book describes a different approach. The society in which we live has become toxic, we should no longer simply be trying to survive it, we should be seeking to improve it. The coronavirus pandemic has given us an opportunity to reset. This book suggests the direction of travel we should take.